


Lifeless

by Neoniichan



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Child Neglect, Depression, Feel free to hate me, I Don't Even Know, I Mean I'm Already In Hell But, I actually am sorry, I'm Going to Hell, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Just Sad Bullshit All Around, M/M, Pining, Present Tense, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidal Viktor, implied suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 19:06:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10445193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neoniichan/pseuds/Neoniichan
Summary: There’s a knock on the door, but it barely registers. Viktor doesn’t even react. Instead, the door opens without his consent, and there is shuffling across the floor. The bed frame groans, the mattress dips, a warm body presses itself against Viktor’s. Silky black hair tickles his arm, and he can feel big, dark eyes on him, but he still can’t look up from the ring on his right hand.“Papa?”Viktor doesn’t answer. He holds his breath again instead. He can’t help feeling that it would just be so much easier for him if he could actually stop breathing altogether. He wants to die.---Or, the fic where Yuri dies and Viktor literally can't live without him. Have fun with that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> When I get depressed, I like to kill things. Luckily that is solely limited to fictional characters that I love, but still. I mean, that's pretty fucked.
> 
> Actually, this came about at first after I watched a documentary where a man lost his wife shortly after their son was born and he had to take care of their two young kids. Initially, I was going to have Viktor recover much the same as the guy in the documentary, but then I went through a depressive episode and now we have this piece of shit.
> 
> Anyway, uhm. Enjoy. Or don't. I didn't, and I wrote it. So.

Silence.

Dreadful, empty silence.

Viktor keeps his eyes closed to the whole world, flexing his right hand in and out of a fist, grabbing for something that just isn’t there. Something that never will be there again. His whole body feels rigid, weighted, as if something is sitting on his chest, and no matter how hard he tries to breathe in, he just can’t.

He holds his breath instead, because it’s just easier that way. He holds it until he sees stars dancing behind his eyelids, feels searing, throbbing pain ripping up through his chest. He holds it until he feels weak, until he can almost feel the missing warmth of his husband beside him, their fingers entwined with all the love and affection they’d previously shared.

And then he exhales, and everything disappears, leaving a vague ache in the sides of his head that reminds him that he is still alive, and still alone.

Finally, he opens his eyes, faces the reality that the other side of his bed is empty, and that it is entirely impossible for its occupant to slip into the room in the misty morning light, crawl back under the covers and sidle up close to him. He isn’t able to kiss his mate’s forehead, nuzzle into his hair to breathe his comfortingly sweet scent in deeply, tell him how beautiful he is and see him blush in that way that makes Viktor think that he has to be an angel. The sunlight will never settle in his hair or glisten in the golden brown flecks of his eyes that no one knew but Viktor, or make him glow when he smiles fondly, warmly; Viktor had been certain that he was some sort of ethereal being and that he didn’t deserve him or his love. It doesn’t stop him from wanting more than anything to see him like that again. Just one more time.

But he’s dead. He isn’t coming back.

With his next exhale, Viktor’s entire body goes limp. His fingers unfurl, arm stretched out across the space that once belonged to his precious husband--the love of his life. He stares, watches the light catch on the ring on his finger, and his jaw sets. In some way, he’s happy he’s already cried everything out. It’s left him feeling numb in the wake of the most agony he’s felt in his entire life. It still hurts. It probably always will. He’ll feel his husband’s absence every moment that he has to spend without him, always, until he finally joins him on the other side.

There’s a knock on the door, but it barely registers. Viktor doesn’t even react. Instead, the door opens without his consent, and there is shuffling across the floor. The bed frame groans, the mattress dips, a warm body presses itself against Viktor’s. Silky black hair tickles his arm, and he can feel big, dark eyes on him, but he still can’t look up from the ring on his right hand.

“Papa?”

Viktor doesn’t answer. He holds his breath again instead. He can’t help feeling that it would just be so much easier for him if he could actually stop breathing altogether. He wants to die.

The body next to him tugs at his t-shirt, one that belonged to his husband. “Papa, wake up.”

“I’m awake, _solnyshko_ ,” he responds, almost robotically, because he’s supposed to. There’s something about being the father to his husband’s children that keeps him from giving himself the thing that he wants more than anything, even if he can hardly look at his son without remembering his husband. “What do you want?”

“I’m hungry.”

Viktor is quiet, but as the dreadful emptiness begins to set in around him again, he wets his lips and swallows thickly. “Go back to bed, Yuzu. Papa isn’t ready to get up yet.”

“I think Viktoria is hungry too.” Yuzu sounds concerned. Viktor forgot he even had a daughter. She’s been so quiet.

He breaks eye contact with his ring, glances down at his son, and he feels his eyes starting to sting again, just when he was starting to think that he couldn’t possibly cry anymore. Yuzu looks so much like his mother, not just in colouring, but in his almond-shaped eyes, softly rounded cheeks and the way his glasses sit on his little button nose. The sunlight settles in his hair and catches the golden brown flecks in his eyes, but he’s not smiling and neither is Viktor. His left hand finds his mouth and he tries to choke back the sob in his throat to no avail. He pulls his right arm out from under his son’s head, turns away from him. He’s crying again.

Yuzu watches. Not yet eight, but very close, he understands marginally what his father is going through. He knows that his mother is gone, and remembers hearing stories about two people who love each other as much as his parents do being separated and pining away without one another. He’s trying to become the man of the house to make things easier on his father, but he’s too small to do most of the chores, and cooking has resulted in less than desirable outcomes. His sister is too young to eat anything he knows how to make anyway.

Yuzu has been living off peanut butter toast. Viktoria is a baby and babies are supposed to drink milk, he knows, but his sister must be as sad as his father because when he offered her a cup, she wouldn’t take it. The first time he had tried, she screamed until she was red in the face. After a while, she stopped screaming altogether, but she still won’t take the milk.

They’re already out of bread--even what was in the freezer--and he’s almost to the bottom of the peanut butter jar. He is beside himself.

He pats his father’s back. “It’s okay, Papa. I’ll try to take care of her,” he attempts, but it only makes things worse. Viktor’s soft sobs turn into painful wails of agony, and Yuzu is afraid that he’s done something wrong. He stops before he can make it worse. If his father hates him, he understands. He’s not trying to upset his father, but sometimes he just does.

Once his husband was buried, Viktor stopped trying altogether. Viktor has largely hidden himself away since the funeral except to go to the bathroom, and sometimes to survey the state of disarray that the house has fallen into in the past week. It usually just makes him look sadder, and he retreats back to his bed. Yuzu feels like he hasn’t done enough and disappears to do more, hoping it will make his father feel a little better next time he comes out of the bedroom.

Viktor hasn’t even left his bed since yesterday morning, can barely summon the strength to push himself up. He hasn’t eaten in days--the last thing was when Yuzu made him a fried egg that was burnt on the bottom and he chewed through it like it had no flavour at all, but that was at least four days ago. He certainly hasn’t had anything to drink, though having impressed on Yuzu the importance of staying hydrated as an athlete, there always seems to be a colourful plastic cup with fresh tap water at his bedside. In the beginning when he thought that this feeling would eventually pass and he’d pull himself together, he’d sip at it just to make Yuzu happy.

He knows he’s a horrible father. He can’t even get up to feed his children so that they don’t suffer the way he does. But… Viktor isn’t really suffering. Depression weighs on him heavily, but other than that he feels strangely… euphoric. He takes it as a good sign. Maybe later he’ll be able to get his shit together and take care of his children. Later though. Not right now.

Hours go by. Viktor drifts in and out, uncertain if he’s even awake or not. Everything blurs together now. He’s not even sure how many days its been in total since his husband died giving life to their daughter. Their daughter, Viktoria, which his husband had specifically told him throughout the entire pregnancy that they were _not naming her that_. In the end, pale-faced and weak and still somehow smiling, he’d held her, called her by name, and Viktor couldn’t watch because he knew what was going to happen next.

There are times when he’s not entirely sure that’s how it went. He has these strange dreams where the love of his life has passed in different ways, each just as painful to watch as the last and so vivid that he is no longer certain what reality is anymore. He thinks it’s punishment for not looking after his mate in his final moments like he should have. He can’t really say for sure.

He spirals in and out, feeling lifetimes go by and watching as his soul mate dies before him each and every time. One of these times is long before they ever had Yuzu or Viktoria, before they were married. Before they were _engaged_ even. One of these times stands out to him, because he knows that he’s standing rinkside in Sochi, December 2015, without even having to think about it. He’s not yet twenty-eight, standing by the boards as he waits for the competitor before him to finish. He watches the short program of the Asian man ahead of him with a hard expression. He assesses the man’s technical ability and presentation, automatically coming to the conclusion that this is a man who idolizes him, who is very skilled but also seems to have too much to think about. It breaks his heart.

He knows this time that he’s dreaming because Viktor remembers how his future husband flubbed almost every component in his program and left with his head hung, only to repeat today’s performance at tomorrow’s free skate, and then continue on the night after to coax Viktor that extra few steps into falling hopelessly in love at the banquet. In this dream, none of that has a chance to happen. His dark-haired angel hits the ice in the middle of his program and doesn’t get back up. Everything is eerily silent as the whole crowd watches and waits, and then there are paramedics, and for some reason Viktor knows that he hit his head just right and his death was almost instant.

He wakes with a start.

He’s sweating and the familiarity of his bedroom has been replaced with the cold, lifeless interior of a hospital room. There’s a sharp pain in his right arm. He looks down and he doesn’t care that there are tubes connected to his body. He immediately panics because his ring is missing. He tries to get up but he’s weak and he can’t breathe and in moments he’s being swarmed by nurses. There’s a mask over his face and he slowly begins to calm. Breathing feels marginally easier.

“My ring,” he wheezes to one of the nurses. His throat hurts. He must have been asleep for a long time.

The woman just blinks at him sadly while she changes the bag of fluids in his IV, and then she leaves without saying a word to him.

Over the next few days as Viktor becomes stronger, it becomes apparent that something is dreadfully wrong and he doesn’t understand why he seems to be enduring somewhat rougher treatment than he ever has during a hospital stay. When it finally comes time to leave, he’s fairly kicked out. Viktor, feeling rather unsettled, goes home.

The house is empty.

There’s a fine layer of dust coating the whole house, muddy boot prints as evidence that he was likely carried out on a stretcher. He can smell spoiled food, predominantly milk and eggs, both of which are left on the counter where a dining room chair has been abandoned. There’s bits of egg shell on the floor in front of the fridge, cemented onto the linoleum with dried egg yolk. Viktor suspects that Yuzu must have dropped the eggs while trying to put them back up in the fridge and a wave of guilt crashes against him violently. This never should have happened. He should have taken care of his children properly instead of laying in bed feeling sorry for himself. Yes, he’s feeling the loss of his beloved husband, his soul mate, but to neglect the two most beautiful things they could have possibly created together….

Viktor feels the worry creeping over him as he treads through the house. There was no way that the paramedics would leave his kids here alone. Likely someone has gotten a hold of their grandparents and the two would be safe at the onsen. He feels relieved when he takes up his phone from his bedside table, finally turning it back on to find a voicemail from Mari that confirms his suspicions. Her voice sounds strained, like she’s holding back on saying what she really wants, but that’s alright. Viktor doesn’t need to hear it. He knows already.

It’s his fault that her younger brother is dead. If Viktor had never come into his life, he would still be alive and well. Viktor can’t stop blaming himself, repeating it to himself over and over until he well and truly believes it. If that weren’t bad enough, he’s neglected his son and daughter, even though none of this was their fault. He’s been horrible to everyone. He hates himself.

He wishes that he had just died instead.

He has every opportunity to finish everything now that he doesn’t have to worry about the kids. He thinks about it. _Really_ considers it for the first time in his life. There’s a wooden block full of sharpened knives in the kitchen and the tub in the master bath is deep. There’s certainly enough chemicals that are corrosive or toxic for humans to consume locked away under the kitchen sink. In terms of medication, there are a cocktail of them for different types of pain along with a bottle of anti-depressants, sleep aids, and some prescription antibiotics. At least one of the painkillers is prescription and came with very specific instructions not to exceed the recommended dosage or to use while pregnant because it’s been known to cause cardiac arrest and miscarriage. There are ropes in the garage left over from the time Viktor thought it would be cool to have a sailboat, and they have an impressive spiral staircase. There are lots of options, any number of them guaranteed to work if no one expects him to be here and decides to check on him.

He could do it. He’s even convinced himself that it won’t hurt. After all, on the verge of starving himself to death, he felt nothing at all. It’ll be the same next time, too. Except that next time, he’ll do a better job.

With no one there to worry or care, it doesn’t take him long.

Viktor just can’t live without the love of his life.

As he sinks down into bed and closes his eyes, he’s enveloped in silence.

Dreadful, empty silence.   



End file.
